OUR PARENTS OURSELVES Sohier Hilliard: Fitchburg Art Museum

Sohier Hilliard: OUR PARENTS OURSELVES Sohier Hilliard: Fitchburg Art Museum

Our Parents, Ourselves September 7, 2019–January 5, 2020

Table of Contents

Director’s Foreword 9

Parental Ties that Bind: Identity and Intimacy in Sage 11 Sohier and David Hilliard

About the Artists 45

Exhibition Checklist 47

Acknowledgments 54 Director’s Foreword

Over the last thirty years, the Fitchburg Art Museum has amassed a truly impressive collection of over 2,000 photographs. These range from nineteenth-century daguerreotypes to large-scale color digital prints of the twenty- rst century. And, in 2013, FAM launched a major exhibition program devoted to the

works of contemporary New England artists. This show, Sohier/Hilliard: Our Parents, Ourselves, directly 9 reects both of these curatorial priorities, while also highlighting the work of two immensely important 10 photographers who signi cantly expand upon the traditions of narrative and portraiture. Many thanks to the artists, and to FAM Curator Lisa Crossman for bringing them together in such an elegant and thought-provoking manner. Thanks also to Professor Rob Carr’s Fall 2019 Document Design class at Fitchburg State University for designing this beautiful exhibition catalogue.

Nick Capasso, Director Fitchburg Art Museum Parental Ties that Bind: Identity and Intimacy in Sage Sohier and David Hilliard

Placed together in one gallery, Sage Sohier’s and David More than documentation of each parental subject in

Hilliard’s photographs of a same-sex parent seemingly daily routines, Sohier and Hilliard manufacture electric

stage parallel worlds. Sohier’s photographs of her environments that make visible something completely

mother, Wendy Burden Morgan, and Hilliard’s of his intangible yet universal: the fraught landscape of

father, Ray Hilliard, are similar in their eorts to capture intimacy between a parent and an adult child. An

complex parental subjects but were conceived interrogation of this landscape unfolds across these 11 independently of each other. Their connection is bodies of work, as the photographers probe the nature instead the product of Lisa Crossman’s curatorial of identity and its link to the deep bonds we share with

project that highlights the shared themes between those closest to us. For Sohier, Wendy’s position as a

Hilliard’s and Sohier’s series, in addition to each former fashion model and as part of a generation of women before second-wave feminism forces a chasm photographer’s individual vision. In Sohier/Hilliard: between them. Similarly for Hilliard, Ray’s ex-military Our Parents, Ourselves, lines between photographers, subjects, parents, and children are brusqueness and stereotypically masculine habits like

heightened and blurred. Crossman, Sohier, and Hilliard bad shirts, cigars, and Playboy makes the two of them

devised the exhibition and its title with this tension ostensible opposites. However, both photographers use

between conuence and divergence in mind, so that their images to mine these gaps for deeper

entanglement is underscored as the central force at understanding and connection with a parent and with

work. themselves. Hilliard, The Lone Wolf, 1993 14

Sohier, Mum applying make-up, Washington, D.C., 1994 Placed together in one gallery, Sage Sohier’s and David More than documentation of each parental subject in

Hilliard’s photographs of a same-sex parent seemingly daily routines, Sohier and Hilliard manufacture electric

stage parallel worlds. Sohier’s photographs of her environments that make visible something completely

mother, Wendy Burden Morgan, and Hilliard’s of his intangible yet universal: the fraught landscape of

father, Ray Hilliard, are similar in their eorts to capture intimacy between a parent and an adult child. An

complex parental subjects but were conceived interrogation of this landscape unfolds across these

independently of each other. Their connection is bodies of work, as the photographers probe the nature

instead the product of Lisa Crossman’s curatorial of identity and its link to the deep bonds we share with

project that highlights the shared themes between those closest to us. For Sohier, Wendy’s position as a

heightened and blurred. Crossman, Sohier, and Hilliard bad shirts, cigars, and Playboy makes the two of them

devised the exhibition and its title with this tension ostensible opposites. However, both photographers use

between conuence and divergence in mind, so that their images to mine these gaps for deeper

entanglement is underscored as the central force at understanding and connection with a parent and with

work. themselves.

David Hilliard has photographed his father intermittently

since the early 1990s, alongside evocative possessions,

family members, pets, and environments. Sage Sohier

photographed her mother Wendy between 2000 and 2014

(with one outlier in 1994) to explore transformations caused

by aging and shifting family dynamics. The use of

photography over time is a loaded choice in these cases,

inherently invoking centuries-old traditions of portraiture

and documentation. The photographic family portrait has its

roots in the earliest days of photography itself. Queen

Victoria—who is largely credited as the rst to harness and

15 popularize the new technology of photography in the

mid-nineteenth century—used the medium to craft a

speci c royal image for herself as queen and for the royal

family as it grew and changed. Photography’s ties to

objectivity and to truthful representation (however dubious

now) made it an indispensable tool for royals and

commoners alike to record themselves, loved ones, and

signi cant moments across centuries. The photograph, more

than any other visual medium, provides a sense of

true-to-life representation and trusted preservation.

Sohier, Mum and Laine in front of family portrait, Washington, D.C., 2011 18

Hilliard, Rock Bottom, 2008 With Sohier and Hilliard, however, the family portrait is

expanded and enhanced in order to reveal dierent

motivations for capturing loved ones in photographs.

These portraits are not just about Sohier’s mom or Hilliard’s

dad and their lives and personalities. By nature of the

child-photographing-parent dynamic, Sohier’s and

Hilliard’s complicated relationships to the lives and

personalities of Wendy and Ray are always in play. In some

images, like Hilliard’s Rock Bottom and Sohier’s Mum in

her bathtub, Washington, D.C., the relationship is presented overtly, with Sohier and Hilliard themselves

appearing in the compositions to quietly orbit the

respective parent. These two images in particular highlight

the simultaneous closeness and distance that exists

between parent and child. In Hilliard’s Rock Bottom, the connection created by the gures’ matching tattoos is

fractured by the expanse of empty landscape that divides

them. In Sohier’s Mum in her bathtub, mother and daughter share the intimate space of a bath, but their

gazes do not meet. The optical trick of the mirror extends

the separation between photographer and subject

in nitely into the background.

Sohier, Mum in her bathtub, Washington, D.C., 2002 Even when the photographers themselves are not pictured, conversations that produced hilarious images like

their presence is implied as integral to the scenes. There is an Bleaching ritual, Washington, D.C.—but also points to

undeniable sense that Ray’s comically unamused gaze in the multifaceted aims of these projects. These images are

Bubble or the glint in Wendy’s eye in Back together with just as much about Sohier’s mother and Hilliard’s father as

Robert, at Laine’s 63rd birthday dinner, Sebastopol, CA they are about Sohier and Hilliard themselves.

were both fostered by and aimed at Hilliard or Sohier, David Hilliard’s use of the multi-panel format reveals his

respectively; we, the viewers, just happen to be standing in interest in pushing photography beyond its

the way. Sohier’s title for her series, Witness to Beauty, conventionalized status as an instantaneous medium. He

highlights the integral role that she plays in the images. The has noted the way that people “unfold” over the course of

word “witness” gives equal weight to both her mother’s being photographed and how his compositions show

commanding presence and to Sohier’s observation of and “moments rubbing up against other moments.” These

relation to it. These views of Wendy and Ray are crafted sentiments and formal choices indicate that the passage of 22

literally through the lenses of each parent’s child, making time is paramount to Hilliard’s work, as he seeks not just to

Sohier and Hilliard integral to their understanding. On her document his subjects as they are but to also excavate and

process for composing the images with her mother and discover the ways that they shift over time. In turning this

sister, Sohier has explained: “Many of the situations we lens on his father across decades, Hilliard set out to explore

photographed were based on memories I had from the contradictions of Ray’s character with the aim of

childhood of things we’d done together. Before we took a understanding: how could Ray be simultaneously “the best

picture, we’d discuss what each of us was going to do.” This and worst of things,” as Hilliard has phrased it, and how

collaborative process not only breathes life into these does one engage with this paradox, particularly when

images—you can almost hear the lively o-camera directly implicated as his son?

Sohier, Back together with Robert, at Laine’s 63rd birthday dinner, Sebastopol, California, 2014 24

Sohier, Bleaching ritual, Washington, D.C., 2003 Hilliard. Bubble, 2017 blissful, as in Mum exercising in her pool, Washington, D.C. Hilliard has said that his photographs are always her opposite position behind the camera. By the end of the

autobiographical, even and especially when he is not series, however, Sohier recognized a kindred interest in

pictured, but categorizes the work with his father as physical beauty and image making in herself: “Finally I can Slipping between Sohier and Hilliard, parent and child, masculine

the most intimate of all of his photographs. The appreciate this way of life and mourn its end. [...] I have and feminine, photographer and subject, past and present, the

continuous desire to return to this subject variously merely shifted my aim, trying to ll other realms with images in Sohier/Hilliard: Our Parents, Ourselves are

over decades stresses how integral Hilliard’s beauty and meaning.” captivating precisely because of their slipperiness. At times, it is

relationship with Ray is to his own identity and proves easy to think that the photographs were captured speci cally for In addition to parent-child dierences, showing Sohier’s and his own assessment that it is dicult to talk about his their pairing in this exhibition. Sohier’s Mum applying make-up, Hilliard’s series together sheds light on the disparity photographs “without it turning into therapy.” Washington, D.C. and Hilliard’s The Lone Wolf, for example, One between the gendered expectations placed on aging men operate like a split-screen movie eect: Ray beholds the pin-up of the most entangled and layered themes in these and women. While Hilliard continues to photograph Ray feminine ideal displayed in a bygone era of Playboy, while Wendy images of Wendy and Ray is gender. Mother-daughter today, Sohier respected Wendy’s wish to end the series gazes at her own visage in contemplation of those same ideals. In 28 and father-son dynamics necessarily spur conversations before advanced aging could aect the images and the his observation of the way that people and passing moments are on generational shifts in gender roles and stereotypes, process. This is a practical decision, but it also speaks to the always “rubbing shoulders with the previous one and the next but Sohier and Hilliard overtly stoke these ames. greater pressure for idealized representations of women. [one], moments rubbing up against other moments,” Hilliard Sohier contrasts Wendy’s concern for her physical What’s more, the images defy easy, stereotypical readings of touches on the inherently entangled nature of our experiences beauty with her daughters’ ostensible lack thereof, but Ray’s masculinity and Wendy’s femininity. Hilliard puts equal and identities. Rather than photographic documents of a parent without passing judgement on either outlook. Instead, emphasis on Ray enjoying a stack of Playboy magazines in or child, Sohier and Hilliard oer viewers entrance into immensely Sohier’s Witness to Beauty presents the concept of The Lone Wolf as he does on Ray’s framed portrait of Henry complex and highly relatable landscapes of intimacy. femininity as one in constant ux and in need of vigilant David Thoreau and stack of poetry books in Shortest Day. questioning. Wendy’s comfort in front of the camera Sohier shows Wendy at her most done-up and performative, Marjorie Rawle, Terrana Curatorial Fellow stems from her former career as a fashion model and as in Mum and Laine in front of family portrait, Fitchburg Art Museum does not extend to her daughter—who clearly prefers Wahsington, D.C., and at her most stripped-down and

Notes

David Hilliard quoted in Michelle Dunn Marsh, “Decades: David Hilliard David Hilliard, “Portrait of an Artist: David Hilliard,” interview by Victoria

Photographs His Father,” Don’t Take Pictures, November 1, 2017, Zhang, The Harvard Crimson, September 9, 2014,

https://ww.donttakepictures.com/dtp-blog/2017/31/decades-david-hilliar https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/9/9/david-hilliard-carpenter-center/

d-photographs-his-father. . Hilliard, “Decades,” 2017.

“A Royal Passion: Queen Victoria and Photography,” The Getty Museum, Hilliard, “Portrait of an Artist,” 2014. 29 February 4–June 8, 2014, 30

https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/victoria_photography.html. Hilliard, “Isn’t This Grand?,” 75.

Sage Sohier quoted in “Witness to Beauty—Sage Sohier Celebrates the Ibid., 70. Unfading Charm of her 89 year-old Mother,” FotoRoom, Sage Sohier, “Afterword: In Beauty’s Shadow,” Witness to Beauty (Berlin: https://fotoroom.co/witness-to-beauty-sage-sohier/. Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg, 2016), 105. David Hilliard, “Isn’t This Grand?,” interview by Pam Houston in What

Could Be (Seattle, WA: Minor Matters Books LLC, 2014), 73. Slipping between Sohier and Hilliard, parent and child, masculine and feminine, photographer and subject, past and present, the images in Sohier/Hilliard: Our Parents, Ourselves are captivating precisely because of their slipperiness. At times, it is easy to think that the photographs were captured speci cally for their pairing in this exhibition. Sohier’s Mum applying make-up,

Washington, D.C. and Hilliard’s The Lone Wolf, for example, operate like a split-screen movie eect: Ray beholds the pin-up feminine ideal displayed in a bygone era of Playboy, while Wendy gazes at her own visage in contemplation of those same ideals. In his observation of the way that people and passing moments are always “rubbing shoulders with the previous one and the next

[one], moments rubbing up against other moments,” Hilliard touches on the inherently entangled nature of our experiences and identities. Rather than photographic documents of a parent or child, Sohier and Hilliard oer viewers entrance into immensely complex and highly relatable landscapes of intimacy.

Marjorie Rawle, Terrana Curatorial Fellow

Fitchburg Art Museum

Sohier, Mum in her garden, Washington, D.C., 2003 34

Hilliard, Shortest Day, 2016 36

Hilliard, Furniture Walker, 2016 38

Hilliard, Crib Notes, 2016 40

Sohier, Cedar enzyme bath, Osmosis Spa, Freestone, CA, 2010 Hilliard, Hug, 2008 44 1

Sohier, Sunrise dolphin watch on eco-cruise, Baja California, 2007 About the Artists Sage Sohier David Hilliard

Sage Sohier has been photographing people in their many other venues. Sohier’s work is in the collections of the David Hilliard uses his unique, multi-paneled technique to Museum of American Art, Microsoft Art Collection, Portland environments for more than 30 years, after receiving her B.A. Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, produce expansive photographs, both guratively and Art Museum, the DeCordova Museum, the University of from Harvard University. She has received fellowships from the Boston, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the literally. His sweeping images depict subtle moments of love, Salamanca, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others. He lives and works in Boston, MA. No Strings Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Cleveland Museum of Art, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, family, adolescence, friendship and the nuances of Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the the Portland Art Museum, the Davis Museum, Wellesley masculinity, with a quiet yet powerful resonance. The multiple Massachusetts Artists Foundation. Sohier’s series from the College, and the Brooklyn Museum, to name a few. She has panels act as short lms; a single work captures the passage

45 1980s, Americans Seen, was published in 2017 by Nazraeli taught photography at Harvard University, Wellesley College, photography illustrates his own personal tensions, fears and 46 Press. Witness to Beauty, her series about her and the Massachusetts College of Art, and has done desires—embroiled in his upbringing and sexuality—they ex-fashion-model mother, was published in 2017 by Kehrer commissioned work for the George Gund Foundation in remain universally evocative. Hilliard received his BFA from

Verlag. Other monographs include At Home With Cleveland, the Robert Rauschenberg Residency program in Massachusetts College of Art & Design before going on to Themselves: Same-Sex Couples in 1980s America (2014), Captiva, FL, and the Photographic Resource Center in Boston, complete his MFA at Yale University. He has had solo About Face (2012), and Perfectible Worlds, (2007). She has as well as editorial work for numerous publications. She is exhibitions in Paris, Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, New York, had solo shows at Foley Gallery in New York, Robert Klein represented by Foley Gallery in New York, Robert Klein Gallery Portland, Frankfurt, Seattle, New Orleans, and Barcelona, Gallery in Boston, Carroll and Sons Gallery in Boston, Joseph in Boston, and Joseph Bellows Gallery in San Diego. among others. Hilliard is the recipient of a Guggenheim Bellows Gallery in San Diego, The Museum of Contemporary Fellowship as well as a Fulbright Grant and often participates Photography in Chicago, and Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, OR. in residencies and lectures at universities such as Dartmouth, Her work has been included in group shows at the Museum of Harvard, and Yale. His work is included in many international Modern Art, NY, the International Center of Photography, the collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Whitney Exhibition Cedar enzyme bath, Osmosis Spa, Freestone, CA, 2010 archival pigment print, edition of 3 Checklist 35” x 28” image on 42” x 35” paper Courtesy of the artist

Sage Sohier

Mum and Laine in front of family portrait, Washington, D.C., 2011 Mum in her bathub, Washington, D.C., 2002 archival pigment print, edition of 5 archival pigment print, edition of 3 22” x 27 ½” image on 28” x 33 ¾” paper 28” x 35” image on 35” x 42” paper 48 Courtesy of the artist Courtesy of the artist

Back together with Robert, at Laine’s 63rd birthday dinner, Sebastool, CA, 2014 Bleaching ritual, Washington, D.C., 2003 archival pigment paper, edition of 3 archival pigment print, edition of 5 36” x 24” image on 43” x 31” paper 22” x 27 ½” image on 28” x 33 ¾” paper Courtesy of the artist Courtesy of the artist

Sage Sohier has been photographing people in their many other venues. Sohier’s work is in the collections of the environments for more than 30 years, after receiving her B.A. Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, from Harvard University. She has received fellowships from the Boston, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the

No Strings Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Cleveland Museum of Art, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the the Portland Art Museum, the Davis Museum, Wellesley Massachusetts Artists Foundation. Sohier’s series from the College, and the Brooklyn Museum, to name a few. She has

1980s, Americans Seen, was published in 2017 by Nazraeli taught photography at Harvard University, Wellesley College, Press. Witness to Beauty, her series about her and the Massachusetts College of Art, and has done ex-fashion-model mother, was published in 2017 by Kehrer commissioned work for the George Gund Foundation in

Verlag. Other monographs include At Home With Cleveland, the Robert Rauschenberg Residency program in Themselves: Same-Sex Couples in 1980s America (2014), Captiva, FL, and the Photographic Resource Center in Boston, About Face (2012), and Perfectible Worlds, (2007). She has as well as editorial work for numerous publications. She is had solo shows at Foley Gallery in New York, Robert Klein represented by Foley Gallery in New York, Robert Klein Gallery Gallery in Boston, Carroll and Sons Gallery in Boston, Joseph in Boston, and Joseph Bellows Gallery in San Diego. Bellows Gallery in San Diego, The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, and Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, OR. Her work has been included in group shows at the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the International Center of Photography, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and

Mum applying make-up, Washington, D.C., 1994 archival pigment print, edition of 5 22” x 27 ½” image on 28” x 33 ¾” paper Courtesy of the artist David Hilliard

, 2008 Mum in her garden, Washington, D.C., 2003 Hug archival pigment print, edition of 5 C-print, edition of 12 28” x 35” image on 35” x 42” paper 3 panels, each 24” x 20”; total size 24“ x 60” 50 Courtesy of the artist Courtesy of the artist and Carroll and Sons, Boston

Sunrise dolphin watch on eco-cruise, Baja California, 2007 Rock Bottom, 2008 archival pigment print, edition of 3 C-print, edition of 12 28” x 35” image on 35” x 42” paper 3 panels, each 24” x 20”; total size 24“ x 60” Courtesy of the artist Courtesy of the artist and Carroll and Sons, Boston

Furniture Walker, 2016 Bubble, 2017 archival pigment print, edition of 12 C-print, edition 1 of 12 3 panels, each 24” x 20”; total size 24“ x 60” 2 panels, each 24” x 20”; total size 24“ x 40” Courtesy of the artist and Carroll and Sons, Boston Courtesy of the artist and Carroll and Sons, Boston

52 Crib Notes, 2016 archival pigment print, edition of 12 2 panels, each 24” x 20”; total size 24“ x 40” The Lone Wolf, 1993 Courtesy of the artist and Carroll and Sons, Boston C-print, edition 1 of 5 2 panels, each 16” x 20”; total size 32” x 20” Courtesy of the artist and Carroll and Sons, Boston

Shortest Day, 2016 archival pigment print, edition of 12 2 panels, each 24” x 20”; total size 24” x 40” Courtesy of the artist and Carroll and Sons, Boston 12 Acknowledgments

Sohier/Hilliard: Our Parents, Ourselves would not be extension our own parents in relation to ourselves. I possible without the stunning and multifaceted am grateful to the entire FAM team, and, in particular,

photographs of Sage Sohier and David Hilliard. And a Terrana Curatorial Fellow Marjorie Rawle. While much

special thanks to Sage’s mother, Wendy Burden Morgan, of the organization for Sohier/Hilliard: Our Parents,

and to David’s father, Ray Hilliard, for their willing Ourselves was complete upon her arrival, I am pleased

participation. I’m grateful to Sage for coming out to FAM that she’s contributed this thoughtful essay to

with her catalogue and some prints from Witness to accompany the catalogue. This catalogue would not be 53 Beauty. I was immediately captivated by Wendy’s possible if not for FAM’s ongoing, productive dynamic presence and the complex musings on collaboration with Professor Robert Carr and his

femininity, familial bonds, and aging that presented talented students at Fitchburg State University. This

themselves in Sage’s work. Already familiar with David’s marks the thirteenth semester of this partnership.

ongoing photography of his father, his photographs Thank you to the catalogue students for your time

seemed the perfect pairing. David and Sage are superb and energy in creating this important document:

collaborators, and I am grateful for their generosity and Taylor Bourgeois, Dean Roussel, Klein Misiuski,

warm rapport. Together, their work gives us the chance to Julia Spotts, Catherine Maxwell, and TJ Yadisernia.

ponder the technical dierences between their

photographs, while sharpening our reections on gender, Lisa Crossman, Curator

class, and growing old. The photographs are eye-catching, Fitchburg Art Museum

rich documents that allow us a thoughtful look at Wendy

and Ray, Sage and David, and, in turn, to contemplate by FAM Board of Trustees

Holly Elissa Bruno Carol Canner Sohier/Hilliard: Our Parents, Ourselves was organized by FAM Curator Lisa Crossman for the Fitchburg Art Museum. Anna Clementi President Catalogue edited by Lisa Crossman and Marjorie Rawle. All photographs courtesy of the artists. Susan Roetzer Scott Foster Catalogue design by the students of Rob Carr’s Fall 2019 Document Design course at Fitchburg State University: Robert Gallo Taylor Bourgeois Vice President Gale Simonds Hurd Nadine Price Dean Roussel Richard Lapidus Julia Spotts Secretary Peter Laytin TJ Yadisernia Annelisa Addante Roderick Lewin Klein Misiurski Achla Bahl Madan Treasurer Catherine Maxwell Joseph Sylvia Nadine Martel Ryan J. McGuane Martin D. McNamara William McSheehy Susan Cunio Salem Karen Spinelli